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The study: Improving listening comprehension among Malay preschool…
The study: Improving listening comprehension among Malay preschool children using digital stories
Introduction
Problem: little research on the effect of internet-based technology in improving children's listening comprehension. all researches are about adults and teenagers
Objectives: 1. to find out if digital stories improve children's listening comprehension skills. 2. to verify whether there is a significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups in their listening comprehension tests
Aim: to investigate the effects of digital stories on the understanding of spoken English by a group of 6-year-old Malay prechool children
Null hypothesis derived from the research questions: the digital stories would improve their listening skills, and as a result, there is a significant difference between the groups in the tests
Literature review
Appropriately selected digital stories, which are visual, interactive and reiterative, are helpful in developing children's listening skills
The interactivity of Internet-based stories encourage children to be actively involved in decoding and understanding the story
Students can progress at their own pace with high level of individual control
The reiterative nature of such stories help children progressively learn the second language
Gains is listening skill and understanding can benefit to improve children's reading comprehension
Computer-based technology in primary classroom is underutilized due to:
Using and incorporating those materials within a more traditional methodology demands an extra effort many teachers cannot afford
Practical guidelines need to be published to assist educators to meet the demand of technology utilization in their classroom
Educators are overwhelmed by the quantity of sites and mateirals that exceed the linguistic level and technological abilities of the children
English language curriculum for Malaysian preschools
enabling preschoolers to activiely communicate with others
developing an enjoyment of the language through the use of stories, rhymes, poems, songs, and games
imagining and creating experiences
vocabulary development through exposure to and of language use
language development through the use of context
Findings
the Levene test
showed homogeneity of variances between the control group and the experimental group in the beginning
hence, there was no significant difference among the 2 groups at the start of the study
T-test
statistically significant differences between the two participating groups except in Part II
Methodology
Instrumentation
2 digital stories in the BBC website
Pretest
collecting initial data on children's knowledge previous to any research intervention and checking that all participants had similar levels of English
divided into 2 sections:
Part I. 5 items were required to listen and circle the right option to test children's knowledge about animals and colours
Part II. another 5 items were required to listen and colour right option to test children's knowledge about numbers and animals
Sampling
50 children participants in a government-run school in Penang, Malaysia
6 year-old children officially start ESL at school
participants were divided into 2 groups with 2 different teachers with 25 in each group:
the control group
the experimental group
Posttest
testing children's progressive understanding of the linguistic structure, vocabulary, sound patterns and prosody of the language
divided into 2 sections:
each part is similar to pretest, but cognitively more complex and concen some new vocabulary
Research design: 2 different types of tasks in which the oral input is reinforced by the visual cues can facilitate scaffold learning
following the narrator's instructions, reacting to commands such as "Click on the screen"
responding to simple questions by selecting the right object after listening to simple questions such as "Can you find a bowl?"
both pretest and posttest were evaluated with 1 mark for correct answer and 0 mark for incorrect answer
Conclusion
the outcome validated the research hypothesis by demonstrating significant differences between groups
objective criteria such as simplicity of grammar, vocabulary and narrative structure were taken into account to make the story predictable and to facilitate comprehension
significant differences between groups might be due to numerous exposure to the digital stories
the participants in the experimental group could comprehend basic linguistic structure and vocabulary by outperforming the control group
Exploring podcasting in English as a foreign language learners' writing performance
Purpose: to determine whether giving EFL learners both podcast and traditional lectures enhances their writing and to explore the adoption of podcasting as a learning or training tool to improve learning and teaching methods
podcasts are quickly expanding popular educational tool for education and training
Problem: how to best improve EFL learning and teaching
Research questions:
Is podcast instruction effective in improving the writing skills of EFL Saud learners?
What are the attitudes of the students toward the use of podcast instruction to improve writing ability?
Podcasting technology
podcasts are audio or video files that are posted as series on the web and distributed via the assistance of a Rapid Simple Syndication feed
podcast programs obtain the up-to-the-minute episodes of the series instantly upon their publication
podcasts can be transferred or downloaded to various types of electronic portable devices such as MP3, or mobile phones
the availability of a vast range of authentic and semi-authentic podcasts with available supporting material means that the teachers can go beyond the confines of course content
focusing specifically on witing skills, podcasting can be seen as a promising tool, not only because of its availability for enriching vocabulary, but also because of its features such as providing more exposure to authentic language., a good tool for reviewing lessons, and offering language learners with samples of real language and authentic materials.
Methodology
Materials
the second podcast: ESL podcast
provide diversities of everyday life issues
short in length, instructive and interesting
the main podcast: Grammar Girl "quick and dirty tips for better writing"
short, interesting tips to enhance writing
illustrate grammar rules and vocabulary expressions that may confuse language learners
Intsrument
Pretest and posttest
pretest - to explore the effect of the podcast lectures on students' writing performance prior to the treatment
in both tests, students write essays with short paragraphs of general topics
Questionnaire
researcher-designed survey - to state their view of podcasts in enhancing writing skills
Validity and Reliability
5 teachers reviewed and confirmed validity with Cronbach a value
55 second level male students at the scientific section of the Preparatory Year in King Saud University
26 students in the experimental group
29 students in the control group
with Arabic mother tongue, most have been studying ENglish for 6 years
current study of English essentially in an instructed sitting, no chance for language practice in a real communicative environment outside the school
Conclusion
Podcasting technology could be implemented as an effective language teaching instrument that provides teachers the advantage of extending their lectures beyond the classroom limit and allows the learners to access the language material at any time and in any place